EPIII: Gazetteer of the Eastern Realms

[Crothian]

This sourcebook profiles 12 prominent geopolitical regions in a d20 high magic fantasy setting. The book is designed for both the player and the gamemaster. For GMs, the book can be used to flavor your own campaign or it can be used as a basis for campaigning in the Elemental Lands setting.

Each region is rich with adventuring possibilities and provides a new garden for your campaigns growth. The history, culture, geographical features (including magical features), and important sites for nearly every region are detailed. Not only does the book capture the essence of a new campaign world, there are plenty of chunky bits to be taken, even by those not interested in the campaign world.

This 33 page sourcebook contains:

* 32 new feats, including feats only available to natives of specific regions
* New races
o The frog-like grippli
o The lands minotaur (updated for 3.5)
o The immortal Lemurians (human subrace)
* New weapons
* New skills
* Details Goths of the Dark Star, an evil bard organization
* Introducing the Ragrvikian Tattoo Mage, including simple rules for magical tattoos
* Details on two campaign specific deities
o Update for Aarus, the Minotaur God
o Revelation of Urnan, the Moon God of Zigatur
* Example NPCs including a mummy lord
* Bonus Creature: Black Ichor Pudding

 

[Crothian]

Gazetteer of the Eastern Realms

Gazetteer of the Eastern Realms

Setting books might be my favorite kind of book. I know there have been lots of them coming out in the past few years and that has caused some people to tire of them. But not me. Settings seem to unleash the creativeness of the writers more then most other products. With a setting the writer can set the rules and alter things from the core books with ease. They can define why these changes happen and craft their worlds with creativity and imagination. Setting give writers one of the best opportunities to present something new and different, or something that has been around for a while in a different light. A lot of people want something different from settings but I actually prefer a book with really good details. A few interesting and thought provoking changes can make something that on the service look the Grayhawk be something actually very different. Gazetteer of the Eastern Realms is a setting book, but not a complete setting. IT is one of four books that make up the complete world. It goes into a few countries that make of the eastern part of their world.

Gazetteer of the Eastern Realm is a PDF by Dunham Studios. While not a very well known company they have quietly produced about a dozen PDFs and a nice little selection of books to offer. Most have to do with this world but all of them seem to be easy to use in other places with a little work. This book is written by C Kendrick Dunham. There is a good bit of art in the book ranging from good to about average. There are some nice maps in here as well. The book though has no book marks and no index. While it is only thirty seven pages long, there are feats and other items scattered around the book that would be easier to find with such options.

The area covered seems to mostly be evil nations. There is a goblins realms and lizards swamps for instance. Each though gives a nice overview as well as a history, life and society and geographic features. One thing that is great is adventuring laws. Simple laws that will help adventures to figure out what the place is like. For instance in the Eastern Conglomerate adventurers not part of the army or worshiper of the Destroyer god is illegal. In fact worshipping anyone but the destroyer god happens to be illegal here. Anyone caught doing illegal activity is more then likely going to become a slave for the rest of their life. A few get death, and only the elite and wealthy hope to get off with a steep fine. Each region has regional feats that do a nice job of mixing mechanics with background. I have always found regional feats to be much more interesting then just general feats.

Each region has a nice little map for it. While there is only a very small world map in this product, one can download a free and bigger version from the company’s site. The map is sidewise and not the easiest to find, but it is a nice and useful for figuring out where each of the places is in relation to each other.

This is a nice setting or part of a setting. The balance on the feats and the few classes in here seem pretty good. It has a lot of flavor and interesting countries for adventures to run into and learn about. There are also many neat little ideas to borrow and incorporate into one’s own campaign setting or even another published setting.